Does Race Really Matter At All In Music?

Contributed Anonymously:

I also wanted to say something about these sudden essays that talk about the issue of race determining the genre of an artist. First of all, I first wanted to say something about the term “pop” music. Yeah yeah yeah it means popular, but still, it’s a genre just the same as R&B, rap, blues, country, etc. is a genre. There is more of a specific characteristic of “pop” than just the fact that it’s a popular song. Pop usually has more of a rock and roll feel, if you notice when you buy a CD by a “pop” artist, it says POP/ROCK on the side. It won’t be often that you will get an Eminem CD and see POP/ROCK on the side of the CD. But anyway, now, I don’t understand why this issue ever came up. Regardless of the person’s color, or if the music is popular or a flop, if the music makes people feel good than why does it matter with these labels! I think in this generation that music is more emphasized by how popular the artist is and how popular their music is, not necessarily an issue of whether or not their skin color will make a difference on their music or popularity. Like for example, you wrote in your essay that Baby One More Time wouldn’t have been a hit on the R&B scene. Well, it was first written for TLC first, would it have been popular then? Well, probably, because TLC would have made it R&B, not exactly like the way Britney did it. But anyway, I think we need to leave the titles alone. Does anybody really care about the color of the artist? How many people buy the album of the artist because they’re pop, R&B, etc? Don’t people buy albums because of the MUSIC, and also because they like the artist? Does color make a difference? Does race make a difference? Does it really make a difference on their music? The answer to your long question is: NO. The end.